Husky Energy Inc., Calgary, temporarily has shut down operations at its 160,000-b/d Lima, Ohio, refinery following an explosion and ensuing fire that hit one of the plant’s processing units over the weekend.
The explosion, which occurred shortly after 6:00 a.m. CST on Jan. 10 in the refinery’s isocracking unit, sparked a subsequent fire that was contained by late morning and finally extinguished later that evening, according to a series of notices posted on Jan. 10 to Ohio’s Allen County Emergency Management Agency and Lima Police Department Twitter and Facebook accounts.
No injuries occurred as a result of the incident, and impacts at the refinery were limited to the area of the isocracker, Husky Energy said Jan. 12.
Other installations and units at the refinery, however, have been shuttered as a precautionary measure, the company said.
While plans are under way to resume operations at the refinery, which can maintain operations without the 25,000-b/d isocracking unit, Husky Energy said it expects production at the plant to be suspended for about a week.
Product supplies to customers will not be interrupted as a result of Lima’s precaustionary shutdown, the company said.
Neither a cause of the explosion nor an assessment of damage to the plant has been disclosed.
The Lima refinery’s isocracker also was struck by a fire in 2009, according to local media reports.
In early 2014, Husky Energy approved a $300 million upgrade project at Lima to boost the refinery’s ability to process increased volumes of heavy crude from western Canada (OGJ Online, Feb. 3, 2014).
The crude oil flexibility project—which comes as part of the company’s focused integration strategy in western Canada—will increase heavy crude processing capacity at the refinery by up to 40,000 b/d starting in 2017 without changing the plant’s overall nameplate capacity, the company said.
The project will include modifications to the refinery’s coker and other processing units targeted to enhance heavy crude feedstock processing but will also maintain the plant’s capacity to refine light crudes, Husky Energy said.
As of late October 2014, front-end engineering and design on the feedstock flexibility project was completed, with detailed engineering still ongoing, according to the company’s third-quarter 2014 earnings report to investors.
Equipment upgrades at the refinery are scheduled to occur during planned turnarounds in late-2015 and late-2016 (OGJ Online, Dec. 1, 2014).
